Commodore 64 Software - Games

Games

Due in part to its advanced sound and graphic hardware, and to the quality and quantity of games written for it, the Commodore 64 became better known as a gaming and home entertainment platform than as a serious business computer. The Commodore 64's large installed user base encouraged commercial companies to flood the market with game software, even up until Commodore's demise in 1994. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the Commodore 64's gaming history is the sheer number of game titles written for the machine. In total there exist well over 23,000 unique game titles for the Commodore 64.

Commodore did not publish many games itself for the C64, instead releasing game cartridges primarily from their failed MAX Machine for the C64. Commodore included an "Ultimax" mode in the Commodore 64's hardware, which allowed the computer to emulate a MAX machine for this purpose. Commodore's most notable contribution to the C64's gaming lore in this early period was perhaps its cartridge based game "International Soccer", which stood the test of time - even being converted to floppy disk and republished later to more sales.

However, aside from the initial Commodore cartridges, very few cartridge-based games were released for the Commodore. Most third-party game cartridges came from Llamasoft, Activision, and Atarisoft, however some of these games found their way into disk and tape versions too. Only later when the failed C64GS console was produced, did cartridges make a brief comeback, including the production of a few more cartridge-only games. Crackers managed to port these games to disk later on.

While the 1541 floppy disk drive quickly became universal in the US, in Europe it was common for prepackaged commercial game software to either come on floppy disk or cassette tape format, and sometimes both. Cassette based games were usually cheaper than their disk based counterparts; however, due to the Datasette's lack of speed and random access, many large games (such as role-playing video games) were never made for the cassette format. Despite this, a great deal of software was published only on the cassette format in Europe, including many "budget" games produced by companies like Mastertronic, Firebird, and Codemasters which was released on cassette only and sold for a fraction of the price of full-price commercial software.

Whilst many commercial software companies produced prepackaged game software, an abundant supply of free software was also available. What is noticeable from the Commodore 64's game catalog, is that a rather large selection of all C64 games were programmed non-commercially by average Commodore 64 users, with editors included in some games, e.g. Boulder Dash Construction Kit, Pinball Construction Set, SEUCK, The Quill, GameMaker. Given the accessibility of BASIC on the Commodore 64, many BASIC games were created and also ported from other computer platforms and modified for the Commodore 64. In addition, many games exist that were released as Type-in programs from numerous magazines, especially European Commodore magazines. Many book and magazines were published containing listings for games, and public domain software was developed and released from both BBS systems and public domain libraries such as "Binary Zone" in the UK.

There were many classic must-have games produced on the Commodore 64, perhaps too many to mention, including versions of classic video games. Of particular note, the smash hit Impossible Mission produced by Epyx was originally designed for the Commodore 64. Epyx's multievent games (Summer Games, Winter Games, World Games, and California Games) were very popular, as well as perhaps the first driving game with split screen dynamics, Pitstop II. Most of these games eventually made an appearance on the Commodore DTV joystick unit many years later. Other hit games such as Boulder Dash, The Sentinel, Archon, and Elite were all given Commodore 64 versions. Cassette users may remember titles such as Master of Magic, Rocketball, One Man and His Droid, and Spellbound on Mastertronic's budget labels. Other notable titles on the Commodore 64 include the Ultima and Bard's Tale role-playing game series. Hewson/Graftgold were responsible for several well-received C64 titles including Paradroid and Uridium—made famous for their metallic bas-relief styled graphic effects and addictive gameplay. System 3 produced The Last Ninja action adventure series originally on the C64. Armalyte, a groundbreaking shoot 'em up title from Thalamus Ltd, and Turrican I & II are among some of the highest rated games for the Commodore 64 (according to Zzap64, which awarded "Gold Medals" to these games).

Notable game designers for the Commodore 64 are: Paul Norman, Dan Bunten (aka Danielle Barry), Andrew Braybrook, Stephen Landrum, Tim and Chris Stamper, Jeff Minter and Tony Gibson just to name a few.

During the final mainstream commercial years of the Commodore 64, Issue 38 of Commodore Format magazine in November 1993 awarded the only 100% rating ever given to a Commodore 64 game in any major Commodore 64 publication. As no game had ever received such a high rating before, and as the commercial Commodore 64 scene was winding down in the mid-1990s, the awarding of 100% was seen as somewhat controversial. The game, titled Mayhem in Monsterland, was developed to exploit a multitude of programming tricks and quirks in the Commodore 64's hardware to the maximum. The impressive use of non-standard colors and scrolling resulted was perhaps the most graphically stunning game ever produced for the Commodore 64. The gameplay itself is similar to that of Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. and SEGA's Sonic the Hedgehog.

Whilst mainstream commercial activity for games no longer exists for the C64, many enthusiasts and hobbyists still write games for the platform. In addition, a few small publishers still sell game software.

Commodore 64 games continue to inspire developers and gamers on modern platforms such as iOS with many games being produced using similar styles of game-play mechanics to those from the Commodore 64 era. The game-play style of Hunchback can be found in iOS game The Rescue for example.